I completely agree. The center-line kept moving to the right since 1980… Music, movies, literature, language went to shit. And I was born in the 80s, and what an awful time, but its nice we have things (such as YouTube, etc etc) to remind us of all the great stuff pre-1980s.
I’ll check out that book… Do you know anything similar? Thanks!
That’s a a tired old excuse, usually for lack of talent. Why would someone deprive themselves of joy? Most of the people I know who prefer the older art before they were born are young. Have you ever been to a concert? You’ll see a TON more at a 60s band/artist than you’d ever see at an 80s band, despite it being closer to them chronologically.
What are you talking about?
I sort of agree with this, coming from an old (well, middle age) dude. People keep talking about how they can’t tell fashion apart but, previously when this came up, I was able to look up articles about fashion trends from the 2000s and 2010s that pinpointed stuff I never noticed. Could I personally pick out a person from 2009 versus 2001? Maybe not but that doesn’t mean much – I’m old and have been wearing the same uncool shit I settled into in my late 20s*. Me not noticing style trends doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Can I tell music from 2015 from 2003? Maybe not, but the style of music I listen to probably solidified decades ago even if I find new artists who play that style today. Which is more a statement about modern music distribution and algorithms that can figure out some indie group’s music fits my sphere than “No one makes new music any more”. Can my 21 year old son who listens to EDM and KPop and other stuff that didn’t exist when I was in college tell a song from 2003 and 2015? Probably.
*Sadly, after decades in the business casual scene, I probably could date a number of polo-style shirts based on color, pattern and material. How lame is that?
Most of our current culture feels more evolutionary rather than reactionary.
I didn’t say it was a trend, I just named a modern artist a lot of people nowadays would recognize -possibly more so than Warhol - to counter the idea that public recognition of artists somehow stopped in 1987. I could have named Hewlett, or Emin, or Hirst, or Ai Weiwei, or Koons, or Hockney, or even motherfucking Thomas Kinkade or Andy Thomas, and it would have been the same point.
Yes, yes, I hear the objection now, a few of those were already known before Warhol died - that’s irrelevant to whether they’re well-known now. And yes, they may not all be as well-known (Hewlett’s work unquestionably is), but certainly all have public recognition.
Well said. I’d also add Kehinde Wiley, especially after he did Barack Obama’s official Presidential portrait.
You might not be able to tell modern fashions apart from those of the 90s if you’re just looking at waist-up pictures… but waist-down, it’d be obvious. Leggings were rare back then, but nowadays, it’s hard to find a young woman who doesn’t wear them.
For males, waist up it’s obvious the fashions are different. People wore incredibly baggy clothing in the 90s.
BTW, what ever happened to poetry? (Other than song lyrics.) Is anyone now writing any that will be studied in future English classes?
Yeah, this talk of stagnation always kind of makes me wonder what kind of delving the people who are making the claim are willing to do. How popular does it have to be before it gets to be part of “Culture”? How much does it have to change?
I’ll give three counterexamples to this idea in the form of music videos.
The first is the video for Dan Deacon’s “When I Was Done Dying”. The song certainly calls back to other electronic artists, but I think if it was done before 2011, it would have only been done by Dan Deacon. I found out about him before 2010, but he wasn’t doing stuff this dense and beautiful before then, I think. On top of that, some of the animators that did the visual portion are pretty much working in forms or styles that really wouldn’t have been possible before around 2010 without being Pixar and having a render farm (and I still bet some of these guys used a render farm, but they’re much more accessible now). Some are working in a simpler style that doesn’t require so much computer power, but they’re still distinctive, and certainly associated with post 2000 animation.
The second is “Guillotine” by Death Grips. I’m pretty sure nobody sounded like them before they did. Adding the bit crushing to the stark tone was certainly a revelation to me. The look is also something that I will certainly associate with the last ten years. (Caution, lyrics not really safe for work, but the pictures are fine.)
And the third is: Bands that are only Bass/Drums in heavy rock have become a pretty common thing in the last 5-10 years. Royal Blood is probably the most common of them, but they are far from the first or the most creative. My personal favorite is Lightning Bolt. They bring their own PA system and have the club or festival mic their PA mix. Not popular enough? I’d point to that crowd. Not influential enough? I dunno, Muse covered them, and my niece went to see Muse last year as her first rock concert. If anything sounded like Lightning Bolt before pre-2010 Lightning Bolt, it was probably only pre-2010 Lightning Bolt. I’ve thought about jumping on the bass+drums bandwagon myself, but then I’d be ya know, jumping on the bandwagon.
This discussion unfortunately has devolved in the way they almost always do, with one side talking microscale and the other talking macroscale so that they just talk past one another.
Microscale is here’s a thing, and a thing, and a thing. Macroscale is here’s part of culture that’s been influenced, and here’s part of culture that’s been influenced, and here’s part of culture that’s been influenced.
Things always pop up. They are different, compelling, often transgressive. Cults and cadres latch onto them. Various other artists notice and may incorporate elements. But they are short-lasting or always niche if they do last. A more famous artist may refer to one but most fans of that artist have no idea of the original.
True cultural influences are rarer, obviously, because it takes so much and so many to move a culture. Once it happens, though, ordinary people notice. They may not know the names of the originating artists but they see the effects all around them. If you tell them that this and this and this are all part of a “movement” they get it and will then notice other examples on their own.
Which is better as art is not an issue. Some of the experimental art that draws passionate followers is unfathomable and repellent to outsiders. Some of the culturally-recognized art is utter schlock that insiders find risible. And some of both are truly transcendentally wonderful.
Both are valuable, but they aren’t synonymous.
I don’t agree. I specifically asked in my last post about how popular does it have to be to be considered part of “culture”. If you can’t place a demarcation line on that, well the discussion doesn’t have much meaning whether were talking the macro or the micro. If you can, then we might have something to talk about. I am honestly asking the question, I don’t know where the demarcation line actually lies. However my instinct says that there’s not really a line you can define, and your culture is largely what you get by accident from the churning below. But if you can come up with a theory of what separates the micro from the macro in this case, I’m willing to listen.
And yes, like it or not, your culture is like a river. It’s very hard to get a sample your culture in the same place twice. Unless it’s actually gone stagnant and has become a pond, of course. America hasn’t settled at all, and it’s probably too young to have done so. Heck, it’s still debatable if there is an American culture. I haven’t seen a place where American culture isn’t churning underneath the entire time in my lifetime, no matter whether the larger culture has seemed stagnant from my perspective. From what I can perceive historically, it’s always been the same churn in the US, and you’re just waiting for the next wave to work itself out into something a large portion likes. Even when it has seemed stagnant, it’s still actually flowing somewhere when you look at it in the long term, even if I don’t like where it’s going at a given time.
Our culture might be in decline, but that’s an entirely different question. Even cultures in decline aren’t actually stagnant.
How do you even identify a “culture in decline”?
Serious question. I recall a Golden Age SF story called “Betelgeuse Bridge,” by William Tenn. Earth is contacted by a race of snail-like ETs, of whom a sociologist remarks, “Of course they’re decadent!” Meaning, they probably don’t even know how their own science/technology works any more. What strikes me about that story is a kind of contemporary (1930s) academic hubris – the author assumed that not only is sociology as exact a science as physics, but that there is a consensus in the field that there is a cultural condition called “decadence” and that its signs should be unmistakable even in a nonhuman species.
I’d say it’s when a culture begins to lose influence over other cultures and progressively stops being practiced widely. So, it’s not a value judgement in my mind. It’s simply whether it’s succeeding at sustaining itself.
Months ago, I asked users on multiple forums to name their favorite music, movies, comedy, literature, and it seemed about 90% of the stuff was pre-1980.
And how old were the users of those forums?
Over the last ten years, I’ve employed about a dozen college students who are allowed to plug their phones into the warehouse stereo system. Since then, I’ve been subjected to more Styx, Foreigner, and Journey than I heard in the entirety of the Seventies.
That said, I don’t think most people over 40 would even recognize an emerging art form. There’s probably a significant cultural history development occurring right now - something related to Internet memes, maybe - that most of us are oblivious to.
Go ask on pop music Twitter and you’ll get quite a different answer.
Actually, that in itself is something new: Kids nowadays can appreciate music and other art from anywhere they want, and from anywhen they want. When we were young, we’d probably never have had even heard of works from outside of our own little spheres, and even if we had, we’d have no way to get easy access to it